Mr. STRONG. We have used oil in connection with nicotines.
Mr. CANNON. To make them stick?

Mr. STRONG. Yes, sir; and the oil that we have used is incompatible with a lot of fungicide sprays, sulphurs. If you put the lead arsenate on with your sprays and if you have followed that with oil, you have stuck the lead on even more tightly and you have increased the problem of getting the residue off. We are still going to work with oils. We have tried a number of things this past season, including calcium arsenate. We did not have very much success with it.

Mr. CANNON. We tried calcium arsenate in our territory. It is not as effective as the lead arsenate.

Mr. STRONG. Yes; and then we tried manganese arsenate and that was decidedly inferior to the lead arsenate, in tests in California, Delaware, Ohio, and Oregon. They had some success with it in Iowa, but there their infestation was not very heavy. We have tried magnesium arsenate in Delaware, and the report on it was very poor. We have tried zinc arsenate, and in Michigan it appeared to be nearly as effective as lead arsenate; and similar results were reported from Missouri. On the other hand, the performance of zinc arsenate in Delaware and Indiana was very unsatisfactory, and did not help. Zine arsenate was tested in Idaho and Oregon and there was some

success.

In the use of all these things there was some foliage injury that we have not found in using lead arsenate. We had to use zinc sulphate and aluminum sulphate as buffers to prevent foliage injury. We tried cryolite in Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and California, with varying results. We have the same tolerance there that we have for arsenic and the difficulty in removing it. We tried barium fluorsilicate in Oregon and Indiana, and it gave very poor control. In California it gave fair control but some defoliation. We have tried cuprous cyanide and with it we had in some places effective control, and in other places there was considerable injury, particularly in the russeting of fruits.

The oil nicotines in several places gave equivalent results to lead arsenate but in others the control was not so good; and, as I say, when we put lead arsenate on to start with and follow with nicotine and oil it is almost impossible to get the lead off.

Mr. CANNON. In other words, you have not found a substitute for lead arsenate, in effectiveness or economy?

Mr. STRONG. That is right.

Mr. CANNON. At the same time you have tightened the restriction and you have lowered the tolerance, to such a point that it is practically impossible for the orchardist to comply.

Mr. STRONG. Well, there was an announcement by the office of the Secretary the other day, as you probably know, about a reduction of the tolerance for the next year to 0.018 from 0.019, but the fact that there is a progressive downward limit of the tolerance makes it all the more necessary for us to do all we can do.

Mr. CANNON. In the last year you have made no progress except through a process of elimination. You have eliminated the possibilities?

Mr. STRONG. Except for the possibilities that have been shown in the use of nicotines. I think there are some real possibilities there; but they have not gone far enough to indicate that we should recom

mend nicotine in the place of lead arsenate, and we do not have enough information to warrant the apple grower in using nicotines and oils or calcium arsenate in place of lead arsenate. If he is going to control the codling moth, the best thing we can tell him is to use lead arsenate.

Mr. CANNON. You have not developed a solvent for removing the lead arsenate? You have not made any more progress in that direction than you have in any other direction?

Mr. STRONG. I cannot say about that-about the success the other sections have had this year is getting the residue off.

Mr. CANNON. In view of that fact, what is the occasion for lowering tolerance?

Mr. STRONG. I would rather the answer to that would come from the people in the Department who have the control of the tolerance situation.

Mr. CANNON. You have had a remarkable opportunity to observe the subject and study it. In your opinion, what was the occasion for lowering the tolerance?

Mr. STRONG. My opinion is that the Department is convinced that these residues of poison on the fruits are dangerous to human health and that just as rapidly as they can possibly do it they want to get below the point where they will be a menace to human health.

Mr. CANNON. That is a theory and not a demonstrated fact, isn't it, Doctor? Have you had any cases of deleterious effects on human health or anything of that sort as a result of these residues?

Mr. STRONG. I have not had any such cases before me; but I am told that the Food and Drug Administration, which is in charge of that kind of work, has.

Mr. CANNON. They were not able to produce a single case at our last hearing. I hope they can produce something this year.

Mr. THURSTON. Fruits and vegetables-is there any difference between the two?

Mr. CANNON. We will only discuss one subject at this time. Mr. STRONG. I will say that in vegetables we have in general got pretty well away from lead arsenate. We have worked out other

insecticides for vegetables.

Mr. CANNON. But in the entire United States you have been unable to produce a single case in which it was shown that method of protecting fruit have had any deleterious effect on human health. As a matter of fact, the residue remaining is so small and so harmless and there is no occasion for any such regulation. I grew up in a section. where the children eat apples in the orchards from the time they are as big as marbles, until the culls drop in the frost. I, myself, go through the orchards practically every day when I am there and pick these apples from the tree and eat them without ever thinking of ever washing them. That is the universal practice there and no one is ever affected. I am exhibit A, in demonstrating that they have no deleterious effects of human health, and our children, from the time they are able to walk in these orchards, go through and climb these trees and eat these apples; and thrive on them.

There has never been one single instance of lead arsenate poisoning of children or adults, and still you continue to lower the tolerance without rime or reason. When you do that you really injure the health of the Nation as a whole, because when you deprive the people

of fresh fruits, the most wholesome article of diet on the national

menu.

Mr. STRONG. If it is the policy to lower the tolerance

Mr. CANNON (interposing). Before we leave that, you do not know of any specific instance, anywhere in the United States, do you, Dr. Strong, where the present tolerance has resulted in any deleterious effects on health?

Mr. STRONG. Personally, I do not; but there might be any number of cases of that kind, and they would not come to my attention. Mr. CANNON. They have never been called to your attention? Mr. STRONG. I do not myself know of any specific cases.

Mr. CANNON. But you do know that there have been cases of diphtheria, and whooping cough, and measles, and all the other diseases of children. Now, you have never had a case that you know of, attributed to these residues, but still the Department goes ahead and reduced its tolerance and makes it impossible for us to produce the fruits the children need.

Mr. STRONG. I believe the feeling is that there is probably a lot of these ills that visit the children and the human race that probably would be attributed to lead arsenic poisoning if an examination was made; but I do not have any case of that kind that you could identify. Mr. CANNON. No physician, to my knowledge, has ever certified to that effect; and there is hardly a child in the United States that has not eaten apples where no such stringent requirement was met. Mr. JUMP. When we bring up the representatives of the Food and Drug Administration, we will let them state the basis they have for considering that these residues are poisonous.

Mr. CANNON. Here is the head of a great bureau whose function and duty it is to devise some plan of controlling pests, who would certainly be aware not only of their effect upon the insects but the effect of the insecticides upon human health, and if there were any deleterious effects, it would certainly be called to his attention; and he testifies that he does not know of any single case in the United States during the last 10 years where there has been any deleterious effect to human health.

Mr. JUMP. Mr. Strong has to go by what the health authorities tell him. They say that these insecticides are dangerous to health and he has to develop spraying elements to replace them, if possible.

Mr. CANNON. Here is the head of this Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine, whose duty it is to study these insects and the methods of controlling them and he does not know of a single case of poisoning from this source. There is not a child in the United States that does not eat apples during the year and he testifies that for 10 years he has never so much as heard of an instance of any child being affected and still they have been putting the tolerance lower, and the tolerance that they propose to enforce in the coming year is so low that it is an absurdity on the face of it.

Mr. STRONG. I say that there may be any number of cases that I do not know anything about.

Mr. CANNON. You do testify that you know of cases of these other diseases but you do not know of a case of that sort.

Mr. STRONG. I do not know of any single case of my own knowledge, but we have brought together, in this effort to find substitutes for lead arsenates all the workers in practically all the States that

have anything to do with the spraying of apples and fruits that are infested with codling moth. I think it was 2 years ago these people were all brought together in a conference to work out a program of control of these pests.

Mr. CANNON. You have brought them together from all over the United States and yet not one of them ever heard of a case of illness from spray residues.

Mr. THURSTON. In other words, they tell you that the lead arsenate is dangerous but they do not tell you the extent of the danger.

Mr. CANNON. They cannot tell the extent because they have never known of a single case.

Mr. STRONG. They say the effects of the lead poisoning are cumulative. I suppose you could go out and eat an apple that had some lead arsenate on it and not have any bad effect; but if you go on getting that into your system, that there would be a cumulative effect that is bad. If people can get away from poison, it ought to be done.

Mr. CANNON. They are not being poisoned in these regions where these apples are produced. Where that is the principal occupation of the population we have as great a longevity as you have in any section of the country. Men grow up in these regions and eat apples from the tree all their lives without washing off these residues and they are living now, in ripe, hale, healthy old age; and I can point out to you any number of them, out there, who have spent all their lives in the orchards and have eaten these apples habitually, without any washing whatever and have not had any illness or injury that could be attributed to it.

Mr. STRONG. I do not question that, sir.

INCREASE RECOMMENDED FOR GRAPE-BERRY MOTH

Mr. SANDLIN. This other increase here of $5,000-that is for the same purpose as related to grapes?

Mr. STRONG. In the control of the grape-berry moth, we have been using lead arsenate, and there is an objectionable residue there; and the $5,000 is specifically devoted to efforts to find a substitute for that insecticide, for grape insects.

SUPPLEMENTAL ESTIMATE FOR SCREW-WORM CONTROL

Mr. SANDLIN. We will take up this supplemental estimate of appropriations submitted by the Acting Director of the Bureau of the Budget.

Mr. Buchanan, the chairman of the committee is here and wishes to ask some questions in connection with that supplemental estimate. The item is as follows:

For the determination and application of such methods of control of screw worms as, in the judgment of the Secretary of Agriculture, may be necessary, in cooperation with authorities of the States concerned, organizations, or individuals to accomplish such purposes, including the employment of persons and means, in the District of Columbia and elsewhere; purchase, operation, and maintenance of passenger-carrying automobiles; printing and binding; rent outside of the District of Columbia; traveling expenses; research, education, and demonstration; purchase and transportation of materials; construction of treating pens and chutes and such other expenses as may be deemed necessary, to be immediately available and to remain available until June 30, 1936, $480,000: Provided, That the cooperating State, organization and/or individual shall be responsible for the handling

and treatment of livestock, including full labor costs: Provided further, That, in the discretion of the Secretary of Agriculture, no part of this appropriation shall be expended for control of screw worms in any State until such State and/or organization or individuals therein have made provision for cooperation satisfactory to him: Provided further, That no part of this appropriation shall be used to pay the cost or value of animals, farm crops, or other property injured or destroyed: Provided further, That section 3709 of the Revised Statutes (U. S. C., title 41, sec. 5) shall not be construed to apply to any purchase or service under this appropriation when the aggregate amount involved does not exceed the sum of $100 (submitted).

Mr. TARVER. You will remember that I spoke to you yesterday about our State entomologist who wanted to be here.

Mr. SANDLIN. But the chairman of the committee is present, and he wants to take that up. It is a supplemental estimate.

Mr. TARVER. Have we had an appropriation for it before?

Mr. SANDLIN. The chairman of the committee ought to be heard on that.

Mr. STRONG. This is the screwworm insect in the maggot and larva stage.

Mr. SANDLIN. You have seen them, I believe, Mr. Buchanan.
The CHAIRMAN. I have seen them and doctored them.

Mr. ROHWER. Here are some pictures which are pretty well labeled, and here are some specimens of the insects.

Mr. SANDLIN. All right. Mr. Buchanan, the chairman of the committee, wishes to inquire about this supplemental estimate.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Strong, how long has your department, or the Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine, been trying to find a remedy for screw worm?

Mr. STRONG. We have been working on the screw worm and have done some research work in Texas for a great many years.

The CHAIRMAN. Your research work was principally directed at one time to the destruction of the green fly, whose nits or eggs produce the screw worm?

Mr. STRONG. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you ever succeeded in that effort to destroy the green fly?

Mr. STRONG. We have succeeded to this extent, that if the farmers will bury the dead carcasses properly and if they will treat the wound with pine-tar oil and benezol, they can control the screw worm.

However, we have found in the past 2 year that there is a species of the fly that we did not know anything about, that affects the living tissue. We had assumed before that there was only one variety of this fly.

We found in 1933 for the first time an outbreak of the screw worm in the southeastern part of the United States, when they appeared up through this area pretty heavily [indicating on map], and in 1934 it developed up through this part of the country [indicating] and did a lot of damage.

The CHAIRMAN. Do I understand that you claim there are two different species of flies?

Mr. STRONG. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. They both attack the living tissue?

Mr. STRONG. Well, there is one.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, my earliest recollection of the Texas screw worm is that if you mark the cattle or castrate them and the green fly goes there and lays its eggs and the screw worm hatches out, you have